Reckless Youth
by Spawn Guy
Summary: It's all good fun until someone looses an eye. Well, a mask lens.


Characters ain't mine. If they were Spectacular Spider-Man would have a third season by now.

---

Something you have to get used to in my line of work is that sometimes crooks can be people too. Frank Castle would disagree, but nobody listens to him. Nobody should.

Sometimes those people can be kids.

Sucks, doesn't it?

Not in that 'Oh whatever happened to them, they used to be such a good person' kind of way, but… well…teenagers are annoying.

"Get him, man! Get him, get him, get him!"

The moron in the Scorpion suit has been yelling that at the guy in the Vulture armour for over an hour now, and God, you'd think he'd get the fact the poor kid has no idea what he's doing…which is a shame because a recent survey revealed that magnetic harness flight is the easiest levitation system to use. The government's actually trying to figure out if it's got the budget to install it in the Mandroid armour out at the Vault.

"I-I got him! I got him, I got him, I got him! I…"

"Got a hand full of zip and a bucket fulla zilch."

I clamp my hand around his wrist, letting go of my webline to slap the palm of my other hand against the armoured chest plate, altering our flight path so we don't splatter across the side of the oncoming apartment building.

I twist my full weight around the gauntlet and fling myself up and over the guy, leaning back so I'll come down on his armour's pack. I manage to cross my legs over the neck brace, pushing down on his shoulder pads to take control and get us back down to street level manually because I just actually don't have the heart to punch him.

"Hi. Ever flown economy before? You're gonna hate it."

A couple stares out at us as we flash past their apartment window, one gigantic black wing grazing the railing of their balcony and almost pitching us around and through the French doors.

I'm starting to see why this guy's having so much trouble staying in control: this thing must have been lifted right out of Toomes' personal stash because it's one size too big for him. The reason I've got enough room to straddle him around the neck like this is because he's got a chicken neck. Seriously, right there! It's poking out all thin and everything right there! His head is practically sinking down into the suits chest and the leg talons dangle limply behind us. I'd be more freaked out about how short he is if I wasn't already freaking out about the fact I'm fighting a Vulture with hair. Red curly hair at that. For a second when he tried to sneak up behind me on the George Washington bridge I thought it was Red 9 in a brand new costume trying to be all grim and gritty and I almost wet myself at the very idea.

"OHHHH MY GOD _NOOOOOOOOOOOHHOOOHOOOOOOOAGGHHHHHHH_!"

Yeah, he screams a lot. That also scared me.

"Relax, I might not be one of your fancy licensed pilots, but I've seen Top Gun a million times and I'm really intuitive."

"AAAAAIIIIIEEEEEE!"

What kind of person _says_ 'AAAAAIIIIIEEEEEE'?

The guy in the Scorpion suit leaps into view, tail dancing, springing from side to side as rooftops lurch beneath us. Apparently the thing went up for auction on the super villain market before falling into obscurity as a collectors item for sickos who actually collect this kind of stuff. He's pretty blurry right now, but his podgy face snarls out at us from behind the military green helmet. There's supposed to be a visor along with the helmet, but I cracked it open when I elbowed him in the face to get out of that bear hug. Looks like he took it hard. I've nicknamed him Scorpy because it's so adorable the way he's trying to be all hardcore dressed like that, and I can't use it on Gargan anymore.

"I swear to God, Kenny you tell him anything you little puke…"

"Like your names, genius?"

That shuts him up.

I finally take pity on Kenny and uncoil my legs, tumbling off him and twisting around to catch Scorpy's tail as it whirls past, catching it with both hands and tugging on it as gravity takes hold of me and does the rest.

Scorpy lets out a sound like a rubber duck being stepped on and falls on his ass, tail lashing. I let go of it at the sudden out burst of my Spider-Sense, the barbed tip erupting into a cloud of tear gas and acid crackling with tazer sparks. I don't think Scorpy's worked out that this thing's wired into his brain through a low rent version of the neural net Tony uses in his armour.

Gargan started out with motion sensors before upgrading to the neural net, which allowed him to install all kinds of nasty junk like lasers and cattle prods instead of anything remotely useful like air conditioning, and either this guy's really stupid or I busted it when I cracked his visor.

The typical neural net usually shuts down as a safety protocol if it's unable to decipher a user's impulses, and I'm worried this kid's going to hurt someone or more likely himself, or even more likely me, since this unit clearly hasn't. I also don't want to find out what happens when all that weaponry in his tail goes off at once.

Spider-Sense.

Scorpy howls as a familiar shockwave pattern cannons into his chest, sending him bouncing across the roof and into an air conditioning unit. Bellow me I hear a yelp and a thud. I land back down in a crouch and turn to see the oncoming globule of paste before I hear the cylinder fire. I cock my head sideways mostly to avoid getting slapped in the face, but also to indicate both being unimpressed and (still) confused by the presence of the other two: a freckled glasses wearer crammed into the Trapster's old purple outfit and some zoned out weirdo in a baggy version of the Shocker costume, the gauntlets bigger than his actual hands.

I leap again to avoid Scorpy's lunge (not that I actually needed to because he rather helpfully yelled at me at the top of his lungs) and cartwheel across the asphalt to land on the roof of a people carrier parked behind me. Looking behind the group in front of me I realise we've landed on the roof of a parking garage.

"So you guys are…what again? The Sophomore Six?"

Even thought there's only four of them, and one of them isn't even one of _my_ guys…

Pasty Pot (because I couldn't come up with anything other than that or Trapster Jr) clears his throat really loudly and pushes his glasses back up his nose.

"Just don't try and stop us Spiderman! We've had enough, and we're not going to take it anymore and-and-and the world's going to know and we are totally killing you to prove it!"

(I love how people forget there's a hyphen in the middle…)

Shocky (yeah, the guy in the Shocker suit) brings up his gauntlets.

"What_ever_, man!"

Not that I couldn't have dodged the blast on my own or anything, in fact I think he may have had an eyesight problem because he's aiming at the carrier instead of me…or it could just be that he's wearing sunglasses over the mask. Either way, I'm going to jump because it's the smart thing to do when someone puts an upward infliction on the end of a pronoun.

I feel the full force of the blast even though I'm about five feet above it. The car _vaporises, _the blast catapulting Shocky past his buddies and clear across the roof, slamming down in a cacophony of breaking glass and wailing car alarms. He looks at the smoke pouring out of his hands, pulling himself up by his elbows into a slumped position, sitting on the beanbag that five seconds ago was the side of someone's car.

"Duuuuuuude! Cool!"

Oh wonderful. A supervillain who wrangled himself all the way here from Californ-i-ay. But I've fought worse, even though these guys put the Grizzly and the Kangaroo to shame.

Shocky tries to stand up, then falls on his back, rocking the remains of the car.

"Oh man! My leg!"

I was afraid of this.

---

Over the past two weeks someone's been smuggling villain tech around the city, apparently without going through whatever the regular channels are supposed to be. This seems to involve catering to a very specific market: high school kids.

Daredevil noticed it first when someone pretending to be the Eel almost blew up Hell's Kitchen, although we received word from Ronnin last Friday that it's apparently the latest thing in Tokyo. Which dosen't make it better. It's gotten more upscale really quickly: Thursday night the week before last a bunch of chess club members in last century versions of the Wizard's armour broke into the Baxter Building and tried to send it into space. They scared Franklin and Val when they crashed in through the window.

Sue doesn't want to talk about it, but from the news footage she did in fact punt one Chester Theodore Arbuckle Jr right out of there with a force field. Bob caught the poor moron wheeling out of control over Kansas, and this is further proof that Sue Richards is far more scarier than Ghost Rider.

They weren't up to talking about it though, even with the Thing _and_ Sue both playing bad cop. None of them were, with any hero. If they won't talk to Daredevil, they won't talk to anyone else. Matt's story, what little of it he managed to get, says it's because these guys don't know who they're getting the tech from. Any and all dealers are doing it through internet message boards and instant messaging, the kids just show up and haul a box full of stuff away from some back alley.

None of this has hit Midtown yet, but I'm worried. I know at least fifteen kids who may or may not be involved in crime right now and a further twenty who have a parent with a criminal record. And the outsiders? Yeah, we've got plenty of those. I should know.

---

"Look, don't move. I said don't move! I'm feeling generous at the moment, and I really could be doing something productive with my time, but how about you guys just stop and we get that…"

"The hell with that!"

Scorpy's tail comes dangerously close to hitting Shocky as he brings it whipping around for another try. I've already leapt to the next car, but I probably needn't have bothered. The guy took out the fender, nowhere near close to the roof.

"Oh, you are so dead!"

"Really? Well…wow! Oh my God! You'd think they'd tell me about things like this! What am I doing wasting all this oxygen when I've got a nice fresh grave to fill!"

I should stop dancing now, the roof of this poor guys car is full of holes and Scorpy seems to be getting the hang of the tail now. Anyway, Plan B (Plan A being hit them until they give up and _that _never works…) is almost in place behind me. I can see him reflected in the back window of a Porcha behind the Six (now two because Scorpy's tail is stuck in the roof) and I can hear the screaming from here.

Superhero Survival 101: Be good at jumping out of the way.

Vulchy hurtles under my splayed leg as he comes screaming out of the air, smacking into Scorpy and Pasty and crushing them all up against the Porcha. Scorpy belly flops loose of the pile and bangs his nose of the roof.

"Kenny…you suck so much…"

Shocky struggles up on his good leg, pointing and giggling even as his shades slip from his mask and break apart on one of the too large reinforced boots. One lens pops loose, glinting in the sun as it spins away and vanishes in a maze of tires.

"Duuuuuuuuuuuuude!"

He stops laughing, arm still held out in pointing mockery, as the web net slaps down on top of him, pinning him back down into the groove.

"Awww man! Bogus!"

Pasty and Vulchy are webbed up together back to back and Scorpy is webbed to the roof exit, his tail bundled up tight in webbing and hung from underneath an SUV.

"Swear Kenny, I am so going to kill you if this goes on the internet…"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry….!"

"My dad is going to kill me…"

"Dude…this sucks."

I give them a salute, one leg perched on the edge of the roof ledge. Someone must have called 911 already and standard NYPD procedure is to check rooftops for metahuman suspects so these guys should be in detention by lunch.

"Scintillating, fellas. See ya around…and around…and around…"

It's big. It's round. It just rumbled past below and screwed up my punch line.

"_ATTENTION, LIKE, CITEZENS OF NEW YORK! I GOT…WOOOOO! I GOT THIS THING JUST NOW AND WOOOOHOOO! YEEEEHAAA! AND ABOUT A POUND OF CRACK BACK HERE AND I'M TOTALLY TELLING YOU MY PLAN CAUSE I'M A SUPERVILLAIN AND I'M GONNA BE ON YOUTUBE! AHAHAHAHA! YEAH! WAHOOO! LET THE GOOD TIMES **ROLL**! OH MAN…heh. I'm funny."_

The Big Wheel…

Someone actually wanted to be the Big Wheel. And he's stoned on top of everything else.

God, I need a drink.

---

It takes a five hour chase across the Bronx, ending with the Big Wheel crashing into the East River, to finally get back to the roof where I left the Sophomore Six…or four rather. Three. Actually.

"Oh for God's sake!"

Scorpy's missing.

"Okay boys, lets…"

Pasty gets an arm loose and fires. I throw my hand up and there's a wet thump. A couple of seconds with nothing better to do go by.

I look at my glove. It's covered in Petruski's gunk. God, I hate this stuff. It's such a wonderful thing to actually play with if you can get your hands on it and it can do so much I never thought of and the chemical, domestic and forensic possibilities are incredible, but in the hands of just about every guy who's ever used it it's just paste, and you look stupid when you get beaten by a guy who's super power is throwing glue at you.

"Pasty…where's Scorpy?"

"My dad's gonna _kill_ me…"

"Saying it is honestly going to make it true…but there is no way this could possibly get worse."

"Um…"

I turn to see what's got Pasty so nervous.

Cap and Tony are standing directly behind me. Arms crossed. When superheroes cross their arms, you run. Unless you're a card carrying member of the Avengers now and they know where you live because they built it.

I put my head in my hands. There's a squelch.

Yeah…

Probably should have waited until Pasty's glue dried out…

---

"Got it…got it…okay, got it…and…"

MJ gives one final tug and my mask bursts open, both eye pieces dangling sadly from a strip of red. I blink in the light of the Tower's kitchen, feeling the air conditioning on the space between my eyes. I must look like a really cheap terrorist now.

"Thanks hon."

"Hey, if you can't ask your wife to unglue your superhero mask from your face, who can you ask?"

"I could always ask my new superhero butler."

"Not on your life, Sir." Jarvis says promptly, materializing out of the kitchen air with a tray of coffee. I think back to that drink I was asking for earlier in the day. I haven't actually had one since re-attending college with MJ and hitting the student bar waiting for her to show up so we could sling home together. And Tony _would_ keep a dry ship.

"Thanks Jarvis." I yank the mask off my face and out of my mouth, swallow the bitter taste of lycra, and repeat myself because I'm not sure he heard it. By then he's transubstantiated into the penthouse and started delousing a bust of the Black Panther.

"So how was your day."

MJ's leaning on the counter, eye pieces in one hand and her head on one side. The smile on her face says that wasn't a question.

"Keep that up honey and I'm going to assume you're just being factious."

"I only ask because Selma from the theatre gave me a ride to Flatiron and somebody in a bad Scorpion outfit jumped out in front of us and almost crashed another car."

I swallow my coffee a little to fast and have a small hot tongued asthma attack.

"Are you okay? Did he do anything? Where did he go?"

"Easy Tiger."

She's patting my back. Which is actually only making the feeling like there's a volcano cooling off in my throat worse.

"He scuttled up a building and disappeared like all you super people do when you want to. He may have broken open a pigeon loft on the way, but he didn't look back or do any more damage."

I get myself a drink of water by filling up my now empty coffee cup at the sink (which just tastes like I'm drinking coffee flavoured water). MJ comes up behind me, then puts her arms around me, leaning her head against a knot in my back and melting it.

"This junior super villains thing is getting to you, huh?"

I put my cup down a lot slower than I need to.

"I never told anyone this before…but after Uncle Ben…y'know…"

I swallow. The taste of coffee flavoured salvia in no way helps.

"…my first thoughts…weren't exactly about turning my sideshow act into a pro bono Good Samaritan gig."

I let that hang in the air for awhile. It feels like it's trying to solidify and asphyxiate me.

"I've told you about the time I tried to get a job with the Fantastic Four and all but after the guys at _That__'__s Amazing _started paying in cheques…if not for Aunt May I might have done something really stupid."

We're quiet for awhile that's longer than a year. This is how we do this sometimes. I think we're so quiet we can hear Tony working on the quinjet five soundproofed floors up.

"That's why some of these guys get to you, isn't it? Because you think you could have been one of them."

She turns me around slowly. It's a clumsy but steady motion totally against our natural grace, but when she takes my hand I feel more human than I have since the debriefing on the way back to the tower.

"But you're not. Even without May _or_ Ben you never would have been. You're an Avenger now, if you guys can find the time between beating up Galactus and kissing the Pope's ring to stop these kids doing something really stupid…just blink and make it so. And if you can't, let Matt Murdock or somebody take care of it. Hell, let S.H.I.E.L.D earn their paycheques if they're so much better at this than you are."

I feel the smile spread across my face in time with her squeezing my hand.

"Thanks honey. Really." We kiss. "Y'know…I might actually take the afternoon off and consider that S.H.I.E.L.D thing."

We smile, come closer, squeeze harder.

Hesitate at the liquefying sound. Look down at our entangled hands.

Yeah…

Probably should have waited until Pasty's glue dried out…

But it's not so bad.

At least not 'till Cap comes in halfway through.

---

I make it to Midtown half an hour late on a lukewarm Fall morning. It would have been three but Stiltman got careless, which is irritating because I fought the Stiltman for half an hour and I feel like I should have gotten more out of that, and _come on_, I'm half an hour late because of the _Stiltman_!

It's kind of a bitter sweet reminder of how desperate Midtown's situation is that I'm still going to have a job when I walk through those doors without phoning ahead or anything and nursing sore ribs from that big robot invasion we helped the FF push back last night. They deserve better than this but one of their best teachers is the guy with the worst attendance record.

It's not about to get any better. The halls are full, trailing away from what I know is going to be my class.

"What the sainted _hell_ are you doing here?"

"Nice to see you too, kid."

Logan steers me off to the side with a heavy adamantium hand, letting two fully armed S.H.I.E.L.D agents drag one of the older kids out through the doors in handcuffs. I get a brief flash of dark hair, angry eyes that aren't under a visor anymore…

"Arty?"

_Scorpy. _

"Yep." Logan trudges off after the agents. I throw the caution of a secret identity to the winds and stagger along after him, a thirty year old chemistry teacher chasing secret agents and the most famous mutant on the planet.

"What the hell are--Logan, look at me…what's going…"

"You're boy there's a rookie super tech dealer."

Logan ignores the No-Smoking sign posted next to the lockers (hell, most of the teachers here do when they think no one's looking) and lights up a cigar Ben Grimm would kill his sweet Aunt Petunia for.

"An' I know that because after about three days hunting around the East Side for these punks and gettin' my ass blasted off by the Crimson Dynamo, some kids you took in gave the guy up. Seems he's a pretty big Venom fan and bouncing around like the Scorpion was as close as he was gonna get."

"But-but--"

But I've had him at the back of my class for a year now.

"But he's going to jail, Kid."

Logan starts putting some distance between us, lowering his voice to that level only super people can get when they're talking about the business in front of high school kids.

"We'll talk at it back at the tower. Rodgers wants us to be on the look out for some Roxxon mercs trying out sabotage jobs on big time businesses that got caught in that Whorlogogog mess a couple of weeks back."

And then they're gone all of them.

And I'm left standing in a crowded hallway full of kids. Thinking.

This is New York City. Major scientific accidents happen almost everyday. At least one in five people have some kind of connection to this magic underground network Steven Strange occasionally goes on about. Even after the House of M there's a good 40% chance you're kid will be born with an active X-Factor.

And now people are selling super villain costumes and super villain powers over the internet to an age group the most at risk the second they get a drivers license. Right here, where I work.

Where. I. Work.

When the world leaches back into the halls and people start shepherding the kids back into their respective classrooms I realise that Peter Parker has two alternatives here, two chances to make sure this doesn't happen again. One of them doesn't involve Spider-Man at all and hopefully never will, thus getting rid of the second. If I'm lucky.

"Okay, who remembered about today's pop quiz on the theories of Dr Erskine? And considering that's already enough superhero action for one day, please don't tell me Wolverine ate your homework."

If I'm _really_ lucky.


End file.
